


To See That Smile

by esteefee



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Drugs, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-21
Updated: 2009-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-17 10:04:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteefee/pseuds/esteefee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A hyperspace by-pass to John's brain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To See That Smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crysothemis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crysothemis/gifts).



> Because [**crysothemis**](http://crysothemis.livejournal.com/profile) made me [a sweet!cracky manip](http://crysothemis.livejournal.com/92688.html) of John's _true_ bed and that happy smile. So, er, take that, crazy girl!

"Take him, please," Carson said, waving his hand toward Sheppard, who was barely sitting upright on the gurney, his head waving back and forth on his neck like a dark dandelion puff.

"Don't you want to keep him under observation?" Rodney asked hopefully. "I mean, obviously he isn't himself. He's...altered, isn't that the term you voodoo priests use?"

"Oh, aye, and I promise it's nothing that eight hours or so won't cure. So please, I beg you, take the colonel out of here."

Rodney peered over his shoulder, but both Ronon and Teyla had oh-so-conveniently disappeared. He heard the faint sound of laughter coming from the corridor and mentally cursed them.

"Fine. It's not like I don't have at least three important simulations running in the lab—"

Carson's eyes went wide. "Dear God, man, don't take him to the laboratory!"

Rodney opened his mouth to snap back, but had to shout instead, "Watch out! He's—"

Spinning around just in time, Carson grabbed Sheppard's shoulders to keep him from oozing off the gurney onto the floor. Rodney rushed forward to help, and Sheppard smiled up at him. He was a limp weight draped over Rodney's arm, like a warm, happy noodle.

"Hiya, Rodney." Sheppard lifted his hand in a wave and almost put his own eye out.

Carson stepped back and in spite of Rodney's pleading look and then his fierce I'll-make-your-life-a-living-hell scowl, just crossed his arms and smirked a little.

"He's all yours, Rodney."

"Gee, thanks."

Carson shook his finger. "Bring him back promptly when the effects have worn off."

"Sir, yessir," Rodney muttered and shifted his shoulder directly under Sheppard's armpit so he could pull him to his feet. "Where's Conan when you need him?" Rodney groaned. Sheppard might look like a stick insect, but he had plenty of weight on him, especially when all he did to help get them down the corridor was loll his head over so he could sniff at Rodney's hair.

"You don't smell like a Vogon," Sheppard said. "Or a Meglos."

Rodney had dubbed the P'iridae 'Vogons' because they were pea-green, lumpy-looking and smelled funny, but Sheppard had insisted they were more like the Meglos because they were plant-based.

Fortunately for the P'iridae, they weren't palatable to the Wraith, which meant their civilization had gone largely un-demolished over the years. Unfortunately for Sheppard, the female P'iridae had sharp spines on their arm-like limbs that injected a toxin meant to protect them from aggressive herbivores.

The P'iridae were of course immune. Earth humans—not so lucky. Especially klutzy flyboys who showed the stupidity of tripping over gear that Rodney had admittedly left in an inconvenient location, and then _falling_ directly on top of their tour guide, M'lazaphia.

Who, naturally, put up her arms to catch him. Instead of poisoning him, though, the toxin had acted as some sort of soporific-cum-happy-juice.

"You're an idiot; you know that?" Rodney said, sweating a little from the effort, Sheppard's nose still snuffling against his neck in a disconcerting way.

Rodney propped Sheppard against the wall with one firm hand on his chest while with the other he fumbled for the door panel. The doors to Sheppard's quarters swooshed open, and Sheppard slid out from under Rodney's hand to go stumbling into the room.

"Home," he said brightly, tottering forward. "Hiya, Johnny," he said, patting the poster. "Hey, surfboard. Hello, jet!" Here he almost crushed the model plane under his clumsy hand. "Hi, bed! I love you, bed!" Sheppard moaned joyfully, falling onto it face-first and leaving his lower half draping down to the floor.

"Try getting on it all the way," Rodney said, peevish. He strode over and tried to hoist Sheppard up fully onto the bed, but it was like wrestling with an oversize, cooked zucchini.

"It's not that easy. It's a little bed," Sheppard said, his mouth muffled by the blanket.

"Don't think I haven't noticed," Rodney muttered, thinking of all his aborted fantasies that ended with both of them toppling off into a tangle of bruised limbs.

"I like it," Sheppard confided when Rodney finally had him rolled to his back with only his feet hanging off the end. "Reminds me of the one I had when I was little."

"Oh?" Rodney tried to keep his mouth shut, because Sheppard even making a reference to his childhood was a rarity in itself, but he couldn't resist adding, "Let me guess: you had one of those beds that looked like a race car." He unlaced Sheppard's boots and tugged them off.

Sheppard shook his head loosely, his hair flopping on his pillow. "Guess again."

"Airplane?"

"Close. It was..." Sheppard zoomed his arms out, his eyes still closed. "Space shuttle."

"The space shuttle." Rodney snorted. "The most un-aerodynamic flying object next to—I don't know—a pound of _lard_?"

Sheppard frowned and nodded solemnly. "Space shuttle," he insisted, "with moon sheets. And landing lights." He opened his eyes and looked at Rodney. "I wanted to be an astronaut. But, you know..." He shrugged. "War."

Rodney swallowed tightly. "Oh." He missed the happy Sheppard, annoying as he was, so he said, "Well, you ended up flying a space shuttle after all."

Sheppard smiled. "You're right! I did. Thanks, Rodney." Sheppard's eyes were warm and too bright—the drug's influence, perhaps, except he'd looked at Rodney a few times like that in the past, so maybe not. Possibly not.

"C'mere," Sheppard said softly, as if he were reading Rodney's thoughts.

Rodney sat on the side of the tiny bed, Sheppard's waist at his hip. _Contusions_ , Rodney reminded himself. _Possible broken bones_. Not to mention the embarrassment factor of facing Sheppard in the mess later, both of them awkward because, yes, the heat of passion could make the ridiculous sublime, but they were friends foremost, and knew each other's idiocies and had smelled each other's PowerBar farts and, really, understood each other far too well for anything like that to have a hope of a shelf-life.

The smile on Sheppard's face had mellowed dreamily, and he lifted one hand to rest it on Rodney's knee. "Space shuttle," Sheppard insisted. "Perfect landing. Trust me on this." His palm curled warmly around Rodney's knee cap.

Rodney's neck heated. "Trust you...?"

Sheppard nodded, looking suddenly sober. "Yeah. Trust me, Rodney."

"Okay," Rodney whispered back. They stared at each other a moment, then Rodney stood up hastily. "I'll consider it," he said primly, "when you are...yourself. Which you decidedly are not at this moment, Colonel." Rodney tugged the cover free, rolling Sheppard this way and that to his mumbled protests, and then fluffed it over him. It landed partially on his head, which he shook indignantly to free his face, as if he'd forgotten he had hands.

"Go to sleep." There, Rodney's voice was perfectly firm, all back in order.

"'Kay."

"I'll be back later to check on you." Rodney wasn't sure why he added that.

But then Sheppard smiled, eyes still closed, lips lifting happily, and Rodney knew why, after all.

  


_End_

  


  
  
Manip by crysothemis

Now with [a comment coda by Elderwitty](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/401875) AND [another one of my own!](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/403253)

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  (Yes, yes, I know the time scale's a little off. First space-shuttle flight, of the _Enterprise_ , was 1977. I don't imagine children's furniture manufacturers were hip enough to build John a bed when he was small enough to fit.)  
>   
>    
>    
>  Meglos, Killer Plant from Dr. Who! |    
>    
>  Vogon, deadly poet from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy  
>   
> ---|---  
  
**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Rescue Mission](https://archiveofourown.org/works/269471) by [elderwitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elderwitty/pseuds/elderwitty)




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